MY DARLING DIARY - Volume Two by Ingrid Jacoby
Following Ingrid Jacoby’s first published diary, which dealt with her wartime arrival in Britain under the Kindertransport movement at the age of 12 and subsequent life through to 1944, Ingrid Jacoby’s second My Darling Diary records her life from late in 1944 through to 1950.
During these years Ingrid lives in Oxford, where she works at the Central
Library for a while and then at Parker’s Bookshop. Throughout her encounters with those in charge and with various
colleagues and friends, her diary reflects the deep thoughts and feelings of a
girl’s coming of age in Britain during the 1940s.
It is the honesty and frankness of Ingrid’s diary that entices the reader to read on; whether it is her unprovoked
lecherous encounter with the famed singer Richard Tauber or her own feelings of
love for various men who wend in and out of her life, we know that the
sentiments are real, being told directly to us as the diary takes on a persona
of its own.
There are times of loneliness, times of desire, sexual experiences with ‘WB’ her married boss at the bookshop and with boyfriends, all interwoven with feelings of inadequacy, doubt, and the myriad of emotions attached to any young
woman from any age. However, this is Ingrid’s story, and in so being is also completely original, enticing and compelling to
read.
Ingrid Jacoby
At the age of 12 Ingrid Jacoby left her home and parents in Nazi-occupied Vienna
via a movement called Kindertransport. She arrived in Falmouth, Cornwall and
spent the years through to 1944 at school there. After leaving school she
worked in various libraries and bookshops. In 1968 she became a mature student
and qualified as a teacher three years later. She studied at Sheffield
University and went on to teach modern languages.
She has always kept a diary, continuing through to the present day, and has
been featured in this connection on BBC Radio 4’s Message to Myself and Woman’s Hour as well as other radio programmes.
